It’s not just an ice rink, it’s our home.

Hockey to us is a lifestyle. It’s waking up every morning after dreaming you’ve scored a big goal in an even bigger game. It’s about giving it your all on the ice even when your mind tells you to quit but your heart and pride tells you to carry on. It’s about the blood, the sweat and the tears you sacrifice day in and day out for your team. It’s about losing your mind when you win and the pain you feel when you lose. It’s about the friendships you forge with your teammates. It’s not just a game, but also a tradition. We love hockey. It has given us joy, it has given us pain but most importantly, it has given us a home. This is what you want to knock down for a profit. Not just an ice rink, but our home.

Because Australia is more than roos and barbies and crocs. It’s rapidly gaining international recognition as a place to send budding hockey stars to get some more experience. With the increasing exposure through livestream’s the sport is growing now more than ever before. Facebook has shrunken the world and the AIHL is only going to get bigger.

Plus, let’s not forget the people that frequent this rink. The families that enjoy an afternoon skate every now and again, the kids learning to bonk around in pads for the first time and little Jessica, who is 7, and wants very much to be both a ballerina on ice and a goal-scoring right wing. With this rink near her house, she’ll never know that she lives in Australia and there’s no natural ice here and that ice hockey isn’t a native sport. She’ll have every opportunity that little Emily has in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, but with our Aussie life.

Finally, let’s not forget that industrious corporate ambition rarely does ANYTHING GOOD for this planet and the people that live on it. The vast majority of this kind of action is designed to do one thing: Make Someone Richer. That’s right, “richer” because they’re never Not Rich to start with and they NEVER undertake these projects thinking, “Ya know, I’d like to build some affordable housing around here to give something back to the community…” They do it for greed, pure and simple.

So this is me, one man, one voice, asking you not to forget these things. I sincerely hope you don’t.